


Love For Sale

by Lily (alyelle)



Category: Tipping the Velvet
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-24
Updated: 2012-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-12 19:17:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyelle/pseuds/Lily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After eighteen months, it's Kitty who finds Nan again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love For Sale

**Author's Note:**

> I'd wanted to fix Tipping the Velvet since I first read the sentence "But not, perhaps, have Kitty in it" in 2002. When I saw Keeley's Kitty, it only made that resolve the greater. This was written for Treehugger, two years ago, over the course of several weeks (begun April 30, finished August 7); I was in the middle of my honours thesis, and couldn't stand to look at Caesar any longer.
> 
> In addition to the dedication, I must thank Tree for her gracious spell-checking and nitpicking. It's not everyone who will beta their own fic.
> 
> [Also archived on [dreamwidth](http://stowaway.dreamwidth.org/26174.html)]

I could still remember that night years later – the cool, damp smell of the river, the muffled sounds of young ladies and their sweethearts as they wound their way home from London’s theatres. If I closed my eyes, I could conjure up his voice, the way Signor Corelli conjured the doves at the end of his act. I could feel his hands, leathery and cold, pressing me down, could see the shining buckles of the black boots I wore, the muck on the ground of the alley we stood in and – her. Her face, as she sang, and how pale it had been; her eyes, and how they had widened as they met mine in the second before I turned and ran.

At the time, of course, I hardly noticed any of that. I didn’t even know how I’d found my way to that alley, only that I’d stumbled from the theatre with my eyes full of tears. Oh, I’d seen her before, any number of times since she’d been married, treading the boards in costumes we'd never worn. Theatre’s Happiest Newlywed, just like the papers said. But she’d not seen _me_ , watching her silently from the shadowy depths of the halls. She'd never looked at me until tonight – or looked into me, for so it had felt, like she’d seen the real me all over again and found the emptiness in my heart. And in that moment my world had shrunk, despite all my best intentions, until there was nothing left but Kitty Butler, her roses and her eyes and the way she’d looked at me so long ago in Whitstable.

On any other night, I might have noticed something – the edge in his voice perhaps, or the fist gripping that gripped the cane so tightly that it left his knuckles white. But this was not any other night; I carelessly nodded my assent, led him to the passageway under the arch and the next thing I knew was that hand at the back of my head, forcing me over. Screams railed at my ears – my own voice, more shrill and girlish than I'd heard it in years – _I won't be buggered, I won't be buggered_. His fingers clawed at me still, one hand at the back of my neck, the other at the buttons of my trousers, and when I thought I could scream no more, that I must stop or choke to death on my useless refrain, the pressure ceased. There were hands on me yet, but they were gentle, rubbing the space between my shoulders. Great sobbing hiccoughs forced their way from my mouth – I must have coughed for a full minute or more, and all the while the unknown hands soothed my back, and the faintest of murmurs made its way to my ears.

“Shh, there, you're alright now.”

A gentleman. I scrambled away from him in panic, thinking he must be a policeman, for who else would be down here at this hour of night? “I'm sorry, Sir, I'm so sorry. It was my very first time, I swear it. Please let me be, you'll - ”

“Heavens, lad, be calm! You've had a shock is all, but you're alright. Here, let me look at you.” He turned me, gently but firmly, to face him, and my heart caught in my throat. He was no policeman after all, but a man whose soft brown eyes I knew all too well. His moustaches were longer, his jowls perhaps saggier, but I knew him all the same.

I stood face to face with Walter Bliss.

His brow creased as he studied me and a wild, foolish hope lit in my breast, that he did not, _could not_ , recognise me. Almost a year had passed since he had last seen me. It was dark. I had grown thinner, surely, and my hair, which no longer had the benefit of Kitty's barber to style it, was slicked back and hidden beneath the cap I wore. But a second later came the smallest of voices from behind him.

“Nan.”

What hope I had was instantly replaced by the blackest despair. She had recognised me through the smoke and crowds of London’s busiest theatre. How could she not know me now? I did not stop to think about how or why she might have found me; I shucked off Walter’s grip and fled into the dark as fast as I possibly could.

+++

_Nan. My Nan._

My feet had reacted before my mind could; without knowing where or why, or even how I was going to explain this to Walter, I hurried after her. My boots – so unsuited to quick motion, unlike the sensible flat shoes that I danced in – slipped and skated on the dank cobblestones. My mind filled with images as I ran: memories of Nan, smiling like the sun, her long tresses fluttering about her shoulders. Nan, now with her hair cut short, snapping the straps of her braces, tossing me a wink as she did. Nan, creamy pink like the insides of her beloved oysters, smelling of worn cotton, steamed salt and family.

And Nan as I’d last seen her, heart laid bare before me, howling out her sorrow as I sat and watched and hated myself.

“Kitty!”

Walter’s voice pierced my reverie. I started, and the toe of my boot caught on the uneven ground, flinging me over in a heap of skirts and lace.

“For God’s sake, Kitty, what on _earth_ were you thinking?” His shadow loomed over me, black like a child’s nightmare. The words echoed through me like church bells. _What were you thinking, girl?_ I glanced up, blinking sudden moisture away ferociously. His eyes, when they met mine, were dark but with concern, not anger. For now, at least. “Here.”

I grasped his hand and righted myself, hardly thinking of how my dress would have spoilt on the muddy street. “I must - ”

He caught me by the elbow. “You ‘must’ nothing.”

“Walter, please.”

“What? Do you intend to go haring through the streets like some common tart? Run blindly through the dark? That won’t help, Kitty.” He regarded me for a moment before adding, “The carriage will be faster.”

He was right, of course. As he was always right. I let him lead me mutely to where the hansom was parked, let him lift me up in like a china doll. I could not think, save to remember the look on Nan’s face as I whispered her name, the dreadful emptiness in her eyes. I had done that to her.

“That was her, I presume?” he asked gruffly, as he settled himself opposite me. “Nan?”

I nodded, unable to speak for the sick churning in my stomach.

“And do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

“No,” I whispered. Nan had known these streets better than I even before we parted. She had wandered them on our days off, by herself more often than not, blissfully unaware of what Walter and I were discussing. And how thrilled she had been to discover the nooks and wonders London had to offer. How many times she had come back to me, her cheeks flushed with excitement, and insisted on showing me a forgotten patch of winter flowers, a statue of someone or other she had once heard of at school, a market lane that sold fresh hot buns into the latest hours of the night.

“I suppose this is where you’ve been dashing off to, is it?”

I didn’t answer. He drew a breath through clenched teeth, making his chest and face swell up – rather like an enraged bullfrog, I thought. He blustered through his moustaches, “Have you seen her before now? Answer me, Kitty, are you - ”

His tirade stopped short suddenly. Such was the man I had sworn myself to; he couldn’t bring himself to say the words, even now. “No,” I said coldly. “No. I saw – I thought I saw her. At a show, a few weeks ago. I left the dressing room as quickly as I could, but it... she wasn’t there.”

“And you’ve been looking ever since.” It was not a question. His eyes narrowed as he watched me, a gesture I recognised from our shows. He had used it countless times, grilling the backstage boys on any mistakes they had made that night.

“I thought if I could just talk to her... if I could apologise - ”

“Apologise? Kitty, don’t be preposterous. You owe this girl nothing.”

“I broke her heart, Walter!”

His mouth opened, once or twice, working like a goldfish as the colour drained from his face. He could not have been more shocked had I publicly slapped him; we never spoke of this. It was momentary, however. He composed himself, and replied sharply, “I hardly think so. You wounded her pride, I’m sure, but it’s not as if you two were - Well. I imagine she’s forgotten all about it by now.”

My stomach lurched, sickened at his tone. Nan had not forgotten. She would never forget, and suddenly I knew how his words in Mrs. Dendy’s boarding house must have sounded to her. Something miniscule snapped inside me, as fine as the thread of a spider's web, but with incomparable consequence. Uncaring, I allowed all my recriminations of the past year to spill out upon him.

“Forgotten?” I repeated harshly. “I don’t think so. I don’t think she’ll ever _forget_. I didn’t wound her pride; I wounded _her_. I lied to her. _We_ lied to her.”

“Kitty - ”

“Yes, Walter. We lied, and we hurt her. What did you think, honestly? That we were just friends? That we did no more than hold hands? You know better than that.” My voice had grown louder, and the hansom driver could surely hear me now, but I no longer cared. Let him judge me. Let the whole world judge me. It was no more than I deserved. “She told you truthfully that day in the boarding house. We were lovers – yes, _lovers_ ,” I repeated as he opened his mouth to protest, and took cruel pleasure in the way he flinched from me. “Not teenage sweethearts. We kissed and we fucked and I lived and breathed and _loved_ her.”

This time there was anger when I met his eyes, cold as the winter sea and just as lethal. “I think that’s quite enough,” he said. His words were soft but they carried through the night like a shout. Turning, he craned his head up to the hatch in the roof and gave our driver the terse direction that we would be headed home now. As we wheeled back in the direction we had come from, he spoke his final words of the night.

“You’ve had quite a shock and are clearly not yourself. I suggest you sleep in the guest room tonight, so that you may have time alone to calm yourself before tomorrow’s shows.”

I made no reply. Instead I turned my face to the window, wrapping my coat more tightly around me as I stared blankly into the night. Nan was somewhere out there in that inky blackness. Tomorrow, I would find her again.

+++

My patience, if I am truthful, has ever been a fickle thing. Over those next few weeks it grew very thin indeed. Had I been thinking clearly, or even thinking as Nan would have, I may have found her sooner. But I was not, and I did not; I thought the way Kitty Butler had always done. I had seen Nan in a theatre and so that is where I searched for her, in every theatre I performed in, through galleries of pretty young girls, garnished like confections with their pearls and lace, and halls of smartly-dressed gentlemen. For weeks on end I peered into audiences, scanning the faces as quickly as I was able, and changed out of my costumes in a rush, desperate to make my way to the foyer. Every time I took the stage, it was with the hope that this night would be the night I saw her again.

It never was.

Walter had not mentioned Nan since my outburst in the hansom. I had indeed taken a guest room that night, and every night since then, expecting that sooner or later he would confront me. He kept his silence however, paying me no more than the most cursory of attentions when he woke or retired for the evening, and after a time, I stopped fearing his anger. Nor did he wait for me at the theatre any longer; after he had dealt with what business he had, he left. I didn’t wonder where he went – I could remember enough of our courting to guess at what he might be occupying his time with – and if anybody questioned me, I simply answered that he had much to attend to on our behalf. Certainly I never heard any rumours to the contrary, and rumours in the theatre had always reached me sooner rather than later.

I kept to myself, foregoing all the girls who had helped me get ready for my act. In the past I had always sought out company; now it seemed preferable to pass the time alone in my dressing room where none might remark upon my unhappiness. Readying my own hair and costumes took longer, it was true, but it afforded me a curious sort of peace that I welcomed with open arms. And once I was done, I contented myself with looking for Nan, thinking of Nan, or – on the nights I could fall asleep – dreaming of Nan.

Weeks crept slowly on into months, and as my patience thinned, my determination grew. Every moment spent outside the house was one in which I searched for her. Eventually desperation took hold of me; travelling to the theatre one afternoon, I caught sight of a 'Wanted' poster and was seized by the idea. I shrieked at the driver to turn back and practically threw myself into the house, careening up the stairs like a thing possessed. At the foot of my bed stood a trunk – its lid was flung back, its contents dumped on the floor in a matter of seconds, and there was my prize: a curled, browning portrait of Nan and I, taken in the earliest days of our friendship.

I had thought I remembered that smile. Looking at it anew, after so many months of searching, I saw that I had not. For a moment I stood entranced, my eye lingering over the quirk of her lip, the curls that tumbled over her shoulders, for at this point she had not yet cut her hair. How I had regretted that moment of sacrifice – the loss of those locks was like that of an old friend, and for nights afterwards Nan's head had felt like a stranger’s on my shoulder. I believe I could have spent the rest of the day lost in that picture, but a persistent voice drew me back to the present, my waiting carriage and impending show.

“Mrs. Bliss?” The driver had come in and now stood at the bottom of my staircase, his hat off and his eyes fretful. “Please, ma'am. Mr Bliss will be awful mad if I have you there late.”

“Yes, of course.” Hastily I tucked the portrait into my purse and, in what was probably the most sensible thought I'd had for weeks, plucked one of the old playbills from the pile at my feet. Nan had been dressed as a boy, after all. KITTY BUTLER & NAN KING the leaf proclaimed, and there we stood, me with my cane and Nan with her hat off, hair tucked behind her ears. _The very thing_.

We made it to the theatre on time, though how I shall never know. All I could think about was the second when I could step off the stage and when it came, I all but ripped my clothes off to change and return to the foyer. I had been on early today, just before interval, and crowds of ladies were milling about like hot house flowers. Nervously I smoothed my skirt, folding the playbill in half so that our names were hidden. Nan and I had never worked these theatres together but even so, I silently prayed that the disguise was enough as I approached the nearest group with a self-assured smile.

“Ladies. Good afternoon.” Ordinarily I might have taken pleasure in the way they blushed, or cast their eyes down; tonight I spared their enthusiasms no thought. I tapped a gloved finger gently to Nan's dark head. “You haven't seen this gentleman about, have you?”

A few headshakes and one, a young blonde with a confidence of someone far older, spoke up. “Oooh, no. But he's 'andsome, isn't he?” I smiled again, with the practiced patience of a mother or school mistress. “Who is he?”

“My youngest brother.” Lies had always been quick to my tongue. Despite the trembling that was welling up inside me, the story spun from my lips as easily as candy floss at a fair. “A clever lad but sadly a stubborn one. He all but broke our poor mother's heart when he left for the navy. I heard that he'd been back to town recently – if you see him, you will let me know, won't you? A message at the booking office will suffice.”

Polite nods and smiles. I moved on, the story never changing from group to group. Sometimes I met pity, sometimes idle interest, once irritation at my interruption. No one recognised her as Nan King. More to the point, no one had seen her in recent days. When the second act bell clanged, I waited until the foyer cleared before slumping miserably into one of the red velvet chairs.

“You alright there, miss?”

I rubbed my eyes hastily, brushed the short, straying curls from my face and looked up. “Yes, thank you, I - ”

“Miss Butler! Oh, Lord, I mean – Mrs. Bliss, rather.”

“Bill?”

“You remember me, then?” He cheeks grew ruddy, his grin wide and perfectly white in that dusky face.

“Of course,” I replied, smiling back. His happiness was as infectious as ever, and a solitary ray pierced the gloom that had settled over me. “Billy-Boy from the Brit. How could I forget?”

“Ah, ma'am, you were always too kind,” he winked.

“But what are you doing here?”

“Well, Flora – you know we were married?” He paused and I nodded; Flora had been our dresser when Nan and I worked the Brit, and stayed on with me until her wedding. “She had a job come up at the Old Mo. Just for a month, but better than nowt, and it's a more pleasurable way to pass time in here for a wage than on the streets out there. But listen to me go on – how are you yourself, ma’am? Did you find Nan?”

I startled, my heart thundering violently in my chest. For a moment I could not fathom how he knew I'd been looking, unless he had noticed the picture I'd showed around. He frowned, obviously mistaking my shock as confusion, for he went on, “Only, she was in here just the other night asking after you. I thought she'd have caught you by now.”

“No,” I said softly. “She didn't.” The gloom that his smile had pierced suddenly shattered, a bright warmth burning painfully sharp in my chest as the meaning of what he was saying dawned on me. “Bill, did she say... did she leave anything for me? A letter, perhaps, or word of where I might reach her?”

He shook his head slowly and the glow of hope dimmed. Of course she hadn't. Nor did I have any right to expect she would have. I waved my hand lightly, as if it didn't matter, blinking furiously to halt my threatening tears. Before I could say anything, he spoke again, and this time his words froze me to the spot.

“I'm sorry, ma'am, no letters. But you might find her over on Gray's Inn Road, I shouldn't wonder. Leastaways that's where she said she was staying.”

+++

It was with a frightful longing that I stood at the end of Gray's Inn Road the next morning, dressed in the plainest walking dress I owned. The smoky colour suited both the weather and my mood. A slight shiver gripped me, though whether from cold or nerves, I couldn’t quite tell. I had thought that I would die of impatience when unable to make my way here yesterday, and passed the night tossing this way then that, as though suffering from fever. Breakfast this morning could not end soon enough, and after Walter had nodded his normal silent farewell, I had quickly run back upstairs, changed my house slippers for sturdier boots and – thankfully – grabbed the nearest shawl to me on my way out the door.

Our drivers were not in the habit of asking questions; Walter had taken pains to employ discrete staff even before our current estrangement. Even so, I had him take me only as far as Chancery Lane Railway, to a row of shops I had visited on occasion, and was careful to allow several hours – the usual length of a Sunday trip – between then and the time I would require collecting. Busying myself at the window of a milliner, I waited until he had passed from sight before hastening down the street. The top of Gray’s Inn Road arrived all of a sudden, looming up at me, and it was here that I stayed, quite unable to move my feet any further.

I stood shivering, staring at the cobblestones that stretched into the distance. I had not thought to ask Bill for a number or side-street, or any other means of narrowing my search. A giggle bubbled up from inside me, reaching hysteria by the time it passed my lips and had a carriage not careened around the corner at that exact moment, I think I should still be standing there, laughing at the mania that had possessed me, at my own stupid fate. As it was I stood rooted to the spot, watching as it ground to a halt, and hiccoughing pathetically until the driver reached me and offered an abashed sort of bow.

“Begging your pardon missus, I _am_ sorry. Are you hurt at all?”

“Hurt? No, oh no. You startled me a little, but I’m fine.”

“Are you headed to somewhere in particular? A lady shouldn’t be walking all on her own, not on a day like this.”

“No, thank you.” I managed a weak smile, at which he looked vaguely relieved. A gloved hand gestured from the window. His mistress, I thought. He was in for a haranguing, no doubt about it.

“Ye’re sure?”

“Truly. I’m meeting a friend not far from here. I’ll be quite alright on foot.” To prove my point I brushed down my skirt, nodded goodbye and headed down the road, as simple as that. The carriage passed me a moment later, and I nodded again, feigning a calmness I did not feel.

“There, Kitty,” I whispered under my breath, afraid that the laughter might attack me again. “Not so hard after all.”

Nor was it. All I could do was walk, and look, and wonder at each house and shop I passed. Was this the one? Did Nan sleep in that blue-curtained bedroom? She had always loved blue. Is this the bakery she bought her rolls and pastries at? Was that her butcher, the man with the salt and pepper hair? This was a world I didn’t know, of families and shops and normality and with every step I took, I found my heart aching more and more. I longed for her. Had I not been so foolish, so amazingly selfish, we might be living in a place such as this now. These could be our neighbours, our shops. Our memories.

I was just passing the furthest corner of the Gray’s Inn Gardens when something – a sound carried on a gust of wind, perhaps, or a message from the angels I didn’t believe in – made me glance to my right. Ice immediately ran through my veins; there, not ten feet from where I stood, was Nan.

It seems silly to think that after all my searching, my first instinct was to turn and run, but it was. To run, or hide, or to stop staring so at least she wouldn't see the torment on my face. I couldn't even do that. My eyes had found her and now devoured her whole, waiting for the inevitable moment when she would feel my gaze. And it came, of course it did; our eyes locked, a sob rushed up to greet me and all the tears I had held back over the weeks went spilling down my cheeks.

For what seemed like a lifetime I stood there, uncaring of what I must look like, uncaring of anything save for the fact that the lover I had stupidly abandoned now stood before me, a dream made flesh. At length she turned; with the loss of our contact, I noticed for the first time that she was in company. Beside her stood a middle-aged woman with a gentle smile and a flaxen-haired girl, who was busying herself plucking the flowers that had grown up between the cobblestones. Nan spoke to them both, gesturing towards me and I felt my cheeks pinking, but the woman smiled and nodded and – my heart almost burst to note it – Nan began walking towards me.

“Hello, Kitty.”

My mouth filled with ash. Biting my lip, I drew a shaky breath and dabbed at the few tears still clinging to my cheeks. “Hello,” I whispered, and repeated it at a more audible volume, “Hello, Nan.”

She regarded me for a minute, her expression unreadable. I was not sure what to say, or whether I was expected to say anything, so I simply studied her in turn. Finally, unable to stand the silence, I began to explain my presence. “I heard you came - ”

She had started to speak too, at the same moment. “Why are you - ”

We stopped immediately. She gestured awkwardly for me to continue. “Bill told me you'd been by,” I said at a rush. “To the theatre, I mean. I thought I saw you there one night, but I couldn't be sure. I went looking. And then, after that night – Walter was furious. I kept looking, though, I had to see - ”

“Is this your friend?” A soft, high voice interrupted me; its owner peering at me from behind Nan's skirts.

“Yes, Grace.” Her mask broke for a second. She smiled fondly at the girl, taking one of her hands in her own. “This is Miss... This is Kitty.”

“Kitty Butler,” I said, holding out my hand. I watched Nan as I did so – if she was surprised by my choice of surname, she didn't show it. Grace took my fingertips with her free hand and made a little curtsey.

“I like your coat,” she said, very seriously, and stroked one finger along the satin fringing of my shawl.

“Now Gracie, please, don’t touch,” said her mother – the woman had come across now too, and I saw that she could not be anyone but the girl’s mother, for they had the same dove grey eyes and upturned nose. “That’s quite rude,” she continued, although gently. “I’m so sorry, miss.”

“Oh, no,” I replied. “It’s no matter.” Grace had dropped Nan’s hand and something in her crestfallen silence reminded me of myself. Bending down slightly to her eye level, I asked gently, “Do you like it so much?”

She nodded, her shy smile creeping back out like the sun from behind rainclouds.

“Well then, you must have it.” Slipping it off, I placed it over her shoulders, marvelling at how the soft rose suddenly gave her cheeks so much colour. She laughed out loud, dancing in a circle around her mother. “Look ma!” she exclaimed.

Her mother frowned, tutting at me. “That’s very kind of you, but we couldn’t possibly.”

“Please. I hardly use it, really. And it does suit her, much better than me I’m afraid.” I looked over to Grace; she was twirling and spinning around Nan now, who watched me curiously. “She looks very well in it.”

Their smiles, when they shone properly, were almost the same, Grace and her mother. “Gracie does like pink,” she conceded. “On a Sunday, anyway. I’m Mrs. Milne, dear,” she added, seeming all of a sudden to notice the lack of introductions.

“Kitty,” I said. “Kitty Butler.” This time Nan looked up, her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Of its own accord, my eyebrow quirked, my head tilting upwards a little – it was a habit from our theatre days when we could not talk properly in the spotlights. An unspoken agreement that everything would be alright. That I had her and she had me.

“A pleasure to meet you, Kitty. We were just headed home. Will you join us? Nancy’s not working tonight of course, and any friend of hers is welcome at our table.”

“Oh, I couldn’t. Thank you, but I should be getting on myself, really. I only...” I trailed off, unable to think of what excuse I might make. The thought of taking tea with Nan again was something to be dreamed of, locked away, safe and unsullied where I might not hurt it. However she fitted into Grace and Mrs. Milne’s life was nothing to do with me; I ought not to have come after her at all. “I couldn’t put you to the trouble.”

“It’s no trouble!” she exclaimed. “Truly. Just come for a cup of tea if you like. I’m sure Nance would be happy to have a friend around. Wouldn’t you, love?” She turned to Nan, who looked at her feet. “It must be lonely for you with only us for company, your landlady and her daughter.”

“Oh, Mrs. Milne,” Nan scolded softly.

 _Landlady_. A weight I had not known I carried suddenly vanished. Not an aunt who might judge me. Not another lady who preferred her own kind – and it was odd to think it had worried me, now, seeing the years between them, but I had known of such a thing in the past. Lost in this realisation, I missed the next question, and came to myself as Grace seized my hand.

“Do, please,” she said earnestly. “We’re having raspberries and pudding.”

It should have made me laugh; to my surprise I felt tears spring back into my eyes. Blinking furiously I looked at Nan. She tilted her head to one side, as though thinking. Slowly her lips pursed into the smallest of rosebud smiles and she nodded once, so quickly I would have missed it had I blinked. “I better then,” I said to Grace, and whispered conspiratorially, “I never could resist pudding.”

She giggled at that, and latched onto Nan’s hand too. And so we set off, Grace in the middle, tugging along Nan and myself, with Mrs. Milne following behind like a proud mother hen.

+++

The kitchen I sat in was small but cosy, the sort that shows all too clearly the difference between a house and a home. This was Nan’s home, I could tell, even if she did sit awkwardly at the table. Mrs. Milne fussed over me, now bringing me tea, now bustling off now to organise pudding, with Grace chattering excitedly at her heels. They joined us for a time, with the raspberries Grace had so happily promised me, but something – perhaps the way I looked at Nan, or perhaps simple mother’s instinct – must have caused her to sense I had something to say. Almost as soon as the last crumb was eaten, Mrs. Milne swept the plates up and smiled at me.

“Now, the girls will want to chat, I imagine. Come and see if we can’t wash these things up before they’re done, Gracie.” And with the promise of a game, Grace bounced ahead of her mother and disappeared into the kitchen.

The silence between Nan and I stretched and once again I found myself at a loss for words.

“She’s lovely, Mrs. Milne. And Grace.”

“Yes.” Nan regarded me cautiously, her eyes slightly narrowed.

“You… You seem very happy.”

“I am.”

“Good! That’s good.” I could not keep looking at her face, so blank and expressionless, and so mumbled the next words to my lap. “You deserve to be happy.”

She laughed, a short huff more like a sigh than anything else. “And what about you, Kitty? Are you happy?”

It was my turn to laugh now. How bitter it sounded, so much so that I could not give her the answer she knew I must. Instead I replied, “Do you remember when you first came to see me?”

“Yes.” She sounded slightly startled. “Why?”

I bit down on my lip, unsure that I could continue the way I wished to. “Walter said you would have forgotten me by now. I was afraid he might be right.”

“You’re still married then?”

“Yes. After a fashion. It’s rather a... a marriage of convenience, you might say.” Grace and her mother would be back any moment, and I was getting nowhere. In a rush, I let the words tumble out. “Oh, Nan, if you knew! If you knew how I’d tried to find you. When you first left, we looked everywhere. It was as if you’d vanished off the face of the earth. I was so afraid you might have – have harmed yourself.”

“You harmed me, Kitty.” Her voice was cold and sharp, like the last berries before the winter frost. “You broke my heart.”

“I know. Nan, I’m so sorry. I made a mistake.” A question hung about my lips, one that I could no more leave unspoken than I could bring myself to ask. “I – Let me make it up to you. Let me see if I can’t mend your heart again.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Her voice was thick, and she stood then, folding her arms around her as she walked to the window. “You’re a married woman.”

“No, I’m not.” I followed her, wrapping my hands around her shoulders. She was stiff as a board, but she didn’t pull away. I held my breath, convinced that the slightest movement would cause her to flee. “I’m not. Please.”

She turned to me then, her eyes filled with grief and confusion, a hundred thousand things I knew were mirrored in my own. My restraint broke; I took her hand and lifted it to my lips as I had done once before. “I’ve never stopped loving you, Nan. My mermaid.”

And then she did flee, wrenching her hand from mine. Tears ran from her eyes in rivulets and I offered her my handkerchief, aware that I was barely keeping my own in check.

“You need time, I know. To think. I shan’t beg you. You let your heart decide what’s right.” Swallowing hard, I continued, my voice trembling only a little. “I’ll come again, if you like, next Sunday. You just have to send me word. And please thank Mrs. Milne for me. It was a lovely tea.”

She nodded, and handed me back the handkerchief. I squeezed her hand once as I took it, the farewell we had used so long ago when she was nothing more than my dresser. “Until then,” I whispered. On impulse I kissed her again, on the lips this time, tasting the salt of her tears, the sweetness of the biscuits we’d eaten, and something else, something I hadn’t even known I was missing, something indefinably _Nan_. Shakily I stepped back, and tried to smile.

“Goodbye.”

+++

_Goodbye._

I couldn’t move in the moments after Kitty left. My feet were leaden weights; it was all I could do to remain standing. I could hear her, taste and smell her. The whole room was filled with her and she wasn’t even there any longer.

“I’m sorry, girls, I - ”

Mrs. Milne came into the room with a tray of cake, stopping short at the sight of me. “Why dear, what is it? And where’s your friend?”

“She - ” My voice cracked and I cleared my throat, trying again. “She had to go, she hadn’t realised how late it was. She said to thank you, very much.”

“Well, what’s wrong then, love?”

I sniffed, wiping tears away quickly. “It’s nothing, really. She’d just had some –some bad news, at home. A family upset.”

“Oh, dear.” She set the tray down on the table, taking my hands – hands that Kitty had held only five minutes before – in her own. “She’ll be alright, I hope?”

“Oh yes,” I said, a half-hearted laugh escaping my lips. “Kitty’s always alright.”

“You are a good friend to be so worried for her. Perhaps you should visit her for a time. Once she’s settled things.”

“Yes, perhaps.” I rubbed at my eyes with the back of my hand. “I’m ever so sorry Mrs. Milne, but I think I ought to lie down. I don’t feel well.”

“Oh, my word Nance, of course. You pop upstairs and I’ll fetch you another cup of tea. You look like you’ve had quite a shock.”

 _Rather_ , I thought to myself, walking up to my room in a daze. True to her word Mrs. Milne brought tea – which eventually grew cold on the table – and biscuits, which I nibbled on aimlessly as I sat and stared out the window. Kitty wanted me back. Kitty Butler – and try as I might, I couldn’t bring myself to think of her by any other name, married or not – still loved me. The idea was so unbelievable I was half convinced I was asleep and dreaming.

How long I sat and stared, I am not quite certain. The filtered grey light gradually faded into smoke and indigo, before finally succumbing to inky blackness. Mrs. Milne knocked once, presumably to ask if I wanted something to eat, but I kept silent and after a minute I heard her steps retreating down the hall, speaking to Gracie in hushed tones. Still I sat, thoughts whirling though my head, unable to make sense of any of them. People walked beneath my window, gents and ladies, even two girls I recognised from across the street. “We must go, Florence,” one of them said, tugging at her companion’s sleeve. I almost envied her, poor rushed Florence, who lost her bonnet running down the stairs behind her friend. The wind began to blow, clearing the sky of its cloudy burden, making way for the twinkling stars hidden beneath. Was Kitty watching them too?

A carriage rumbled by, stopping just a little way down from me. Not so strange, on its own, although we didn’t often have drivers come down here; Green Street was altogether too narrow for them, and most preferred to wait on Gray’s Inn Road for their occupants. Still, I wouldn’t have looked twice at it had it not been for the pitiful mewling that crept through the night after it stopped. Every so often it ceased, and just when I thought it had gone for good, it would start again, quiet at first but growing louder each time.

I don’t know why I thought to go out – at the worst it could only be a new mother and a colicky baby – but I swung myself down from the sill and lit the lantern on my dresser. The house was quiet, Grace having long since gone to bed, and if Mrs. Milne was awake, she obviously hadn’t heard anything. Tiptoeing to the door, I drew back the bolts, careful to make as little noise as possible. It opened with the smallest of creaks and I peered outside, raising the light against the wall of black.

“Hello?”

The noise had stopped again, but a scuffling noise came from the bushes by the gatepost. “Is someone there?” I called and, rewarded by a hiccoughy sound, I moved down the steps. “It’s alright, I won’t hurt you. I just want to - ”

A face peered mournfully out of the darkness “Help,” I finished lamely, dropping the lantern to my side. I knew that face. Tear-stained and still in the same dress she had left in, Kitty stumbled towards me with a little cry and, before I knew what was happening, all but collapsed in my outstretched arms.

+++

“Lord, have mercy. Is she alright?” Mrs. Milne whispered. Kitty sat in the kitchen, exactly where she and I had taken tea this afternoon. Underneath the redness, her face was very pale and a livid red cut glared from one cheek, just under her eye. I refused to dwell on how she might have got it, though I could guess all too well. Her hair – I had not noticed this afternoon, but it had grown quite long, almost to her collar – fell messily about her face, giving her the look of nothing more than a lost and frightened child.

“I don’t know,” I replied softly. “I think so.”

“The poor thing, she looks like she’s been to Hell and back. Maybe you should take her upstairs to rest, Nance. We can’t send her back out like this.”

She was right. Kitty had stopped crying but still refused to speak; her eyes stared glassily into the distance. I walked to her side and knelt down, taking her cold hands in mine.

“Kitty? Kitty, I’m going to take you - ”

“No! No please, don’t take me back there,” she cried, leaping from the chair like a startled dove. Poor Mrs. Milne jumped back too, hands at her mouth in abject misery for her. I caught her about the waist, holding her firm with one arm, smoothing her hair down with the other.

“Shhh. I’m not taking you back anywhere, Kitty. I’m taking you upstairs. Alright?” She looked at me, terrified, her eyes very wide like she had quite lost her senses. I continued speaking, calm and bright. “Only upstairs to my room, that’s all. You can rest there in the quiet. Would that be alright?”

She swallowed and nodded. Slowly I released my grip, and when she didn’t immediately flee, I took her hand as I’d have taken Gracie’s, and led her up the stairs into my room. Mrs. Milne followed.

“Can I help, Nance? Just tell me what I can do.”

I shook my head. “I think she just needs to rest. I’ll be fine with her for now. You have some sleep too.”

She stroked my hands. “You’re an angel, love. You just come to me if you need anything. I shan’t sleep much more tonight anyway.”

I closed the door very gently after her, and turned to study Kitty. She still sat on the bed, unspeakably pale, but at least looking around the room. It was dark, but she seemed more comfortable here and rather more herself now than she had when we were downstairs in the kitchen. I tried speaking to her again.

“Kitty?”

She met my gaze slowly, as though it cost her great effort. “I’m so sorry,” she said, swallowing heavily.

“Don’t be.” I dropped to the bed beside her. “Just tell me what happened. Why were you out in the middle of the night? And - ” I raised a fingertip gently to the gash on her cheek, “- tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”

Her hand came up to wrap around my wrist, and she nodded, eyes closed. “He was waiting when I got home,” she whispered. I did not need to ask who or why.

“You fought.”

“Yes. I said I couldn’t bear it any more. Walter has always let me do very much as I please, you see.” She opened her eyes again. “I didn’t ever think this of him. I told him I – I was going to leave, anyway. We haven’t slept in the same room for months now. It shouldn’t have mattered.”

“You hurt his pride, Kitty.”

“No. No, it wasn’t that. He knew it was you. He called you the most horrible things, and... I began it. I threw a vase.” She giggled then, reminding me of the mad women I had sometimes passed in Smithfield. “Can you imagine?”

“Rather well, actually,” I replied, grinning a little. The smile seemed to calm her.

“I said that I loved you, that I’d always loved you, that our marriage was nothing but a lie. I’ve never seen anyone so angry.” She looked at her feet, something she’d used to do when side-stepping the truth. I wondered who else had treated her this way. “I know I said I’d give you time but... I didn’t know where else to go.”

There were so many things I could say, yet none seemed the right thing. I stood again, counting paces from the bed to the floor and back again. At first Kitty said nothing, apparently content to watch. My nerves, in some curious way, must have calmed her; at length she spoke again.

“I meant what I said, Nan. To Walter and to you.”

I sighed. “You think you do, perhaps. I don’t know that I can believe you.”

“Well. I can’t honestly say that I blame you for that.” She shuffled back on the bed, settling herself in a corner against the wall and tucking her stockinged feet up under her skirts. Her teeth worried at her bottom lip. “I wanted to ask you something. But before I do, you should know who I am. The real me.” She drew a deep breath and asked, “Do you remember what I told you of my childhood?”

I frowned. “Yes, I think so. You and your mother travelled. You grew up in a performing troupe. Kate, you called yourself.”

“Kate Straw, yes. I did travel, eventually, but not with my mother.” She began clenching and unclenching her fists, obviously unsure how to carry on. “I was called Caitlyn when I was born. Caitlyn Delaney. My father was a priest. He’d come to England as a young man, from Ireland, to an abbey in Rochester. I had four brothers, all of them older than me. My mother died when I was four years old; it was my eldest brother, Andrew, who raised me.”

She said all this quite matter-of-factly, as though reciting from a book. I stopped pacing and leaned back against the dresser to listen.

“I barely remember my mother at all, except for the songs she used to sing. What I do remember is growing up under the care of four brothers.” A rueful smile crept onto her lips. “I was not what you’d call a well-behaved girl. How could I have been, with so many boys to teach me? I dressed in their old clothes – cut-down trousers were so much easier to manage than skirts and stockings. I ran about the countryside with them, quite happily, getting into God only knows how much mischief. And God did know, my father would assure me, quite vehemently. When I first took communion – I must have been about ten by then – he called me a wicked girl, and said I was fit for nothing but punishment.”

“He sounds quite beastly,” I said. I had not meant it to sound as harsh as it did but she seemed unperturbed.

“I’m sure he thought he was doing the right thing. He let me alone for the most part, anyway.” She paused, furrowing her brow momentarily. “I knew I was different, growing up. I never felt like I fitted anywhere. Soon after my communion, another priest came to stay with our family –the parish in Faversham had burned, and he was to take it when it was rebuilt. He brought his wife and daughter. Her name was Margaret. She insisted I call her Meg.” The corner of her mouth quirked up a little. “Her parents hated that nickname. She was a little younger than me, but we became friends, such close friends as you’d never imagine. And I felt like I belonged, for the first time I can remember.

They stayed with us for a while, and I remember every day was like... magic. Meg and I were inseparable. I hardly saw my brothers; we slept, ate and played together. After lessons we would run off to the woods and hide from the boys, or make boats from sticks and float them out onto the parish duck pond. She could do all sorts of things I couldn’t, like braid hair and embroider. I thought she must have been some kind of angel come down from the heavens.”

Kitty looked so sad that I couldn’t help but interrupt. “What happened?”

“They left,” she said, looking down at her hands. “The Faversham parish was rebuilt soon enough. She promised to visit. ‘Once a month, at least,’ she said, and near squeezed me to death when she left. Two months passed, and then six, and finally, after almost a year, my father said she was coming to stay, a full week or more.”

She looked up at me again. “You have to understand, I didn’t know why I was so happy then, only that I was. Our first day together was a dream – we skipped through the streets, holding hands and singing nonsense songs. My brothers teased me about it that night, calling her – well, you can probably imagine. I wasn’t quite thirteen, and didn’t understand a word of it, but I slapped Patrick and David just the same. I very nearly wasn’t allowed out the next day, although had I been locked in, I’m sure Meg would have found some way to get me out.

We snuck out early the next day, down to the woods. I don’t remember why. Little girls’ secrets, I suppose. I had been fretting about her going – so soon to be worried, I know, but all I could think was that I wanted her by my side, forever. I told her so, in a fit of tears. I called her my sister and said I loved her more than anything and I wouldn’t let her go back to Faversham without me.” Her fingers delicately traced the pattern on the blankets as she spoke. “And she kissed me. Just like that. I was so shocked I almost fell over. Then she took her handkerchief, wiped my tears away, and kissed me again, promising she’d never go anywhere without me.” Her voice became hard. “It all sounds very romantic, doesn’t it?”

I raised an eyebrow. “It’s a far cry from Freddie in Whitstable, yes.”

“My father was waiting when we got home, with a cart and driver. I had no idea what was going on. He ordered me to his study and locked me in there while he packed Meg’s things and put her on the cart with a letter. I remember screaming – at the door, the windows, at anything and anyone. He let me go until I had no voice, and then... He’d never struck me before.” She looked down at her lap, adding softly. “I never found out who had told him. He called me an abomination, a child of Satan, and told me I’d burn for my sins.”

It shames me to recall that, even as I stared in mute horror, part of me wondered how this could be true. It was so horrific that surely it must be a tale from some music hall pantomime, where the maiden is eventually rescued and lives happily ever after. Yet a memory surfaced as I listened, of the drunk in Deacon’s, of Kitty’s reaction to his slurs. I had experienced derision like his since, but only very occasionally. It sickened me to the core to imagine a child being treated in such a manner. Gingerly, I sat down at the opposite end of the bed, unsure of whether to comfort her or let her continue. In the end, Kitty decided for me.

“I cried all night. At the first sign of light I put what things I thought I would need into the biggest bag I owned and snuck out into the morning. I thought that perhaps I could go to London – father was always telling us to pray for the runaway children working in London – but I hadn’t the faintest idea what to do then. Or how to get there, as it turned out. The performing troupe found me, wandering in quite the wrong direction, at mid-morning.”

She caught my eye and shrugged a little. “I believe they only wanted me as a lady’s maid at first – one of the girls had not long had a child of her own, and couldn’t pamper it all day, for she was part of an act. I was invited to ride and eat with them and soon enough had the poor little thing was sat in my lap. I sang to her, a song my mother had once sung to me. They stopped, one by one, sitting and staring right at me. I couldn’t imagine why – though I rather think you can.”

I nodded. The sky had started to lighten, revealing the shadows of exhaustion under her eyes.

“I sang with them the very next night, in braids and ribbons, and a dress that dragged behind me as I walked. So Kate Straw was born, for that was the name I had given them when we met. And then… well, you know the rest. I met you.”

I could not stay seated any longer. I wandered to the door, to the dresser, back to the window. The night had lasted almost forever, but the sun that was rising steadily outside seemed suddenly like a precipice, looming to greet me with an irreversible choice. I could turn and walk back, to the home and the safety I had come from. Or I could jump.

“This doesn’t change anything, Kitty.”

“I know. I know, but… Oh, please Nan, couldn’t we start over?”

It will sound overly dramatic, but I found myself quite unable to speak. _Walk or jump_. The words cannon-balled through me, and I glanced at the door. As if to make my mind up, my feet started towards it, and Kitty gave a little cry. I turned to face her then; her eyes glimmered with tears and dropped to her lap rather than meet my own. For a moment she stayed there, like a marble statue, cold and beautiful. And then she stirred, made to rise from the bed, and the spell was broken; I dropped a low bow, affecting to remove the hat I was not wearing.

“Begging your pardon, Miss, and forgive my boldness. Only you look like a gal I knew, once upon a time.”

She fell back, hands dropping to her side once more. She had ever been one for games, but Kitty Butler was no longer the only one who knew how to play them. This she understood perhaps better than anything else.

“A girl?” she murmured softly. “A sweetheart, perhaps?”

“Of a fashion,” I said, and she pinked at that echo of Walter’s long ago words, all along the top of her cheekbones, highlighting the freckles I had so happily languished over in another lifetime.

“I see. And what happened to this girl, Miss...”

“Astley. Nancy Astley. She left me.”

“I’m so very sorry, Miss Astley. It must have been quite awful for you.” The pink deepened, becoming the crimson of an early dawn. Again I kept silent and she sighed, worrying at the hem of her jacket as she spoke again. “I also had a sweetheart once. A girl, I mean. About your age.”

She glanced up, beseechingly, through her lashes and I arched an eyebrow, the way she had taught me. “Oh?”

“Yes.” Her voice grew even softer until it was barely a whisper, but in the silence of that room, it could have been a shout. “I... I loved her. More than I can find words to say. But I was very foolish, and very cruel, and I walked away from her. And I have regretted it every minute since.”

I would always remember her in that instant, the way she sat on the bed like a china doll flung onto a heap of discarded toys. Nothing about her fit in here: her skirts were too silky, her gloves too clean. Even the traces of perfume that lingered about her rain-sodden curls were too fine and prim for the cotton-dust world that Gracie and Mrs. Milne belonged to. And yet, as much as I loved it here, I could not deny that I still loved her more. That I would always love her, that she made me whole in a way nothing and no one else ever had.

“Nan,” I said slowly, keeping my eyes on her. She raised her head warily, her eyes questioning. “You must call me Nan. You never told me your name.”

“Kitty,” she breathed, “Kitty Butler.” And something broke inside me. Her name was the answer to every prayer I had refused to utter, to the sleepless nights my heart had cried out Kitty, Kitty.

“Kitty,” I repeated, unable to keep the crack from my voice. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The first rays of morning sunlight broke over the window pane then; beautiful, but nothing at all compared to the smile that lit up her face. She flung her arms around my neck, knocking me off my balance and onto the bed where she fell beside me. I wrapped my arms tightly around her as she covered my face in kisses, all the while feeling her name sing its way through my veins. By the time day broke over our heads, she was asleep in my arms, my Kitty once again, for now and forever. I closed my eyes, breathing in the essence of her, and let myself drift off to join her in slumber.

  
_fin._   


  



End file.
